Video Fitness

Aerodynamics

Marcus Irwin

To give you a bit of background, I am an advanced exerciser who adores complex choreography. Christi Taylor, Patrick Goudeau, Seasun Z., and Rob Glick are all close, personal, workout buddies ( on my TV screen only, of course . . .SIGH ). I was recently introduced to Marcus, and it was love at 1st sight. :) Aerodynamics is part of the Evolution series, and is 90 minutes of hi/lo, broken up into 3 sections. Each section is a distinct “style” of aerobics. He calls them “traditional,” “athletic,” and “dance style.” Within each section you do a complete “take it from the top,” ( TIFTT ) but there is no TIFTT for the entire DVD. The DVD version is extremely well chaptered, so it would be easy to make this a 30, 60, or 90 minute workout, depending on how much time you have, or to combine with another workout. There is no warmup or cooldown, but in the 1st section, you work up in intensity gradually enough to get warm. Cooldowns I don't mind doing on my own. Marcus being Marcus, even in the sections he calls “traditional” and “athletic,” there are lots of twists, turns, mambos, and cha chas. Fun, fun, fun! He's having a great time, and you can't help but smile back at him as he laughs at himself and his 2 “backup babes,” when someone messes up or is just plain winded. He comes across as genuinely someone you would enjoy spending an hour or 2 working out with. Don't expect to get knocked on your behind in this workout, like with some instructors. Marcus is my guy for a moderate intensity workout that, even on the days when I don't have time to do all of one of his 90 or 100 minute workouts, I still WANT to. In fact, once I get started, clock ticking or not, I usually go much farther in the workout that I “had time” for.

While this workout isn't MIC high impact, there are higher impact moves, especially in the 2nd section, which Marcus dubs "the athletic section." He does lead into those moves with low impact moves. For example he does double hamstrings before doing the higher impact version where you do the double up-and-back move. Since Marcus uses a layering technique though, I was having trouble envisioning how to keep some moves low impact without losing the flow of the combination. Nothing was nearly as high impact as jacks, but my touchy knees were feeling it a tiny bit by the end. I suspect it's because most of the higher impact moves also involved some torque ( i.e. Hopping in a half-turn ). Since my workout area is carpeted, I have to be sure to really JUMP on turning moves.

The set is very dark, with monitors in the back with the rotating red “e” that you see on other Evolution workouts. Aerodynamics is a bit of a space hog, so there were some combos where I really couldn't give it my all. I have about 2 grapevines' width plus a tiny bit for my workout space side to side, and about the same front to back. This workout needs about twice that space as presented. I could shorten my steps and change my angles a bit to be able to get through it, but it wasn't easy on a couple of the combos.

All in all, I would dub this workout a great time, but not my favorite Marcus hi/lo. That honor belongs to Twirl, which has a higher fun factor for me. Part of it is the “space hog” aspect of Aerodynamics, and part of it is just how the choreography came together. I would still highly recommend it for choreography lovers. While it is a bit pricey, clocking in at 90 minutes means it's actually very reasonably priced compared to some other DVDs on the market, especially from newideafitness.com, which is where I purchased my copy.

Instructor comments: Marcus comes across as the guy next door. He has a great personality and genuinely appears to be having fun. He keeps you from wanting to "clock watch," because you get drawn into his good time.

ErinF
ferragut@mchsi.com
1/15/05

On cardio work, I am an intermediate to advanced exerciser who enjoys with complex choreography at some level. I also enjoy my “easier” workouts on those mornings I don’t feel like thinking that much. After trying many different cardio workouts with varying complexity, I have found that I enjoy many different workouts, but my absolute favorites are those that many complexity lovers on VF would classify as intermediate because the instructor takes awhile to build combinations and/or explains more than the most complex instructors (like Christi, Patrick, or Andre). I love Christi and Andre, but it takes me longer to “get” their workouts.

Someone loaned me Aerodynamics so I could see if I would like this workout. It immediately went on my “buy” list. I have so much fun while I’m doing it and find myself grinning most of the time. The DVD makes it easy to choose a section to start with. Marcus is his normal engaging, explanatory, slow-to-build-combinations self. There are a lot of explanations and marching between moves and then all of the sudden I would be twirling around the basement, stringing together all the moves we had gone over in the past few minutes.

The set is one of the standard Evolution sets, dark and stark, with TV screens with the Evolution “E” on them. Marcus is backed up by two background exercisers who mess up once in awhile, making me feel better about my effort! The music is similar (or the same?) as other previous Marcus workouts.

Marcus puts together the first combination and the TIFTs it. He then puts together Sections 2 & 3 and TIFTs them. This workout is a MAJOR space hog, especially front to back. It is also a lot of fun with turns and pivots and mambos, etc. There are a couple of times that Marcus says something like “This is like being in a washing machine” – and it IS exactly like that.

Instructor comments: Marcus is his usual fun, engaging self. He so motivates me to stay with him and put in a good workout.

Laura S.

July 8, 2005



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